While we’ve got our hands on Clockwerk’s tail feathers, after breaking into the Parisian nightclub owned by Dimitri, most of the parts are still out there. Fortunately, we’re here to liberate them from the claws of the… Klaww Gang.

And of course, if we have a good time along the way, all the better.

It’s funny that the first Rajan episode contains one of my favorite segments of the game in the ballroom scene, because the following episode is easily one of my least favorite episodes.

Sure, in terms of raw gameplay it’s merely an extremely easy quick-time event, but the devil is in the details. The combination of the music and animation for Sly and Carmelita creates a suave atmosphere that adds to the fantasy of being this international raccoon-of-mystery. It feels cool to take part in that, matching our movements to the beat. Top it off with the fact that Carmelita has no idea she’s dancing with Sly Cooper, and it’s a recipe for an incredible sequence that lasts exactly as long as it needs to.

This is sadly not something I can say for the hub world of Episode 3. Out of all eight hubs, it’s easily the most frustrating to navigate since there are so few ways to scale up to the treetops and higher ground. It’s annoying to walk up to a location only to discover that we need to hop over to the other side of the map because we don’t have a foothold to scale up to a ledge just beyond our reach.

Thankfully, we’re nearly finished with our time here. Then, it’s on to the next heist.

Yet again, we walk the Path of Champions across the lands of Runeterra. And a new champion has answered the call.

The self-made leader of Bilgewater, Miss Fortune, allows us the use of her motley crew for this expedition. With her aid, we will show our opponents why the other pirate captains bend the knee.

Always feels good to walk back a campaign that looks to have gone completely south. That match against the rockbears was disastrous, and we won purely through a stroke of luck.

Although, once the time came to deal with Viktor himself, as the boss of the track, we completely crushed him despite starting with critically low life. A few more pot shots and we would have been toast.

It was a thrilling match!

In the PS2-era, mascot platformers were a dime a dozen, easily one of the most represented genres of the platform. As a result, each of them, even the big three of Jak, Ratchet, and Sly had to find ways to distinguish themselves from the rest of the pack after their first outings.

We saw Ratchet doubled-down on its third-person shooting, adding elements like strafing and character/weapon progression to refine the gunplay that was more of a secondary element of their original game. As for Sly Cooper, let us delve into the second entry to discover how our favorite raccoon thief set himself apart.

Since the protagonist and his friends are all master thieves, it made sense for Sucker Punch to double down on that aspect of the character when giving the series its own flair. All of the changes made to the formula in Band of Thieves help bring the game closer in line with that vision, turning each chapter of the game’s 8-chapter narrative into an Ocean’s Eleven-style heist movie, hybridized with a comic book.

When you explore a large open area, performing missions and tasks inside that world, you start to get familiar with it, learning how to best navigate it. It’s akin to “casing the joint” before we commit to the heist.

With Bentley and Murray in the field, we have the feeling of multiple talented outlaws, each with their own unique skills, coming together to perform jobs none of them could pull off on their own. We see them set up the heist by performing jobs to slowly whittle away at the security of the seemingly impregnable locales.

Giving us extra health allows us to enter combat and experience the consequences of getting detected without instantly killing us. We can either formulate an escape plan or take out the guards before they summon their friends.

It works well and gives the franchise a flavor completely unique to its own.

We’ve been enjoying our time with Master Duel, exploring some of the best its ranked format has to offer. But we’ve yet to explore any of the special events Konami has thrown in-game, each with its own themes and gimmicks.

We missed out on the N/R Festival, doing a strong impression of Magic: The Gathering’s Pauper format. And when this Limit 1 Festival came along, I knew I had to show it off. Where the N/R Festival was impersonating Pauper, this one is mimicking the Highlander/Singleton formats that are popular in Magic: The Gathering, like my beloved Commander.

Let’s see if the concept works as well here as it does in Magic.

In looking up possible decks to run for the festival, I came across an attempt to make a Commander-style format in Yu-Gi-Oh! called Hydralander, but it doesn’t seem to have been updated for at least half a year, so I assumed it died out some time ago.

And that’s a real shame because this festival shows off how much fun Yu-Gi-Oh can be in a singleton format. Without the ability to play three copies of a card, there’s more variance in what cards we see in each hand. As a result, the important part is both building a deck that contains multiple potential playlines and ways to reach them, and the ability to adapt to the situation left to them by their opening hand in combination with the board state.

Where most duels are decided in the first turn, these singleton matches result in games with tons of interplay between players. I’ve far more games that swing back in forth between myself and my opponent until one of us finally gains that edge we need to turn the tide permanently and win the game.

It’s a fun space that I wish Yu-Gi-Oh! occupied more often.

We’ve put an end to the Protopet menace and saved the galaxy, but that doesn’t mean our time with Going Commando is over just yet. Thanks to a couple of save files I found on GameFAQs, we have access to all of the extras available in both Going Commando and the original Ratchet & Clank.

So let’s slow down a little and explore these bonuses before moving on to the next adventure.

As I’ve said many times before, Going Commando set out the formula that the series would use henceforth, and the bonus content in it is no different in that respect.

Challenge Mode in particular has become such a core feature of the franchise that it’s hard to think that there was a time when it wasn’t part of the game. Without fail, it always compels me to return to play the game again and again. It is fun to replay the game with your full arsenal and watch it once again build up into an even more potent set of deadly tools of destruction. Even at full power though, the bolt multiplier raises the skill ceiling dramatically. Players are rewarded for avoiding damage with increased cash flow that accelerates the rate at which their gear can be upgraded. It’s an ingeniously satisfying gameplay loop for repeat playthroughs.

As for the Insomniac Museum, I can’t heap enough praise on it. I live for these kinds of glimpses into the process that made my favorite games. It’s why I still shout out the Developer Commentary Let’s Play and Golden Bolt’s Retrospective. If anything, I get way more out of it now than I did as a child since I know much more about the industry.

With that, our time in the Bogon Galaxy has come to an end. Next time, depending on what happens with The Quarry, we will either begin that, or continue onto Sly 2: Band of Thieves.

It’s time to D-d-d-d-Duel!

We’ve previously played with one of the best decks in Master Duel, Zoodiac Tri-Brigade. While it’s still one of the best decks around, another hybrid of two archetypes has chosen to step up to the plate as a top-tier contender.

So let’s take it for a spin. It’s time to play some Swordsoul Tenyi.

Thanks to Hex Lab for his combo guide, which I used to get comfortable with the deck even if I bungled the combos more than a few times. He’s also made videos for Zoodiac Tri-Brigade, and an update for it to explain how certain combos can be modified to incorporate Destiny Hero – Destroyer Pheonix Enforcer. These guides are worth watching if you’re looking to up your skill at the game.

Thankfully, with the exception of staple cards that nearly every deck uses these days, Swordsoul of Mo Ye is the only Ultra Rare we need for the main deck. The real expense lies in the extra deck, consisting of many Super and Ultra Rare cards that are fairly unique to these archetypes. Still, it’s not as bad as other decks can be in terms of cost, and it is one of the most powerful ones on the ranked ladder.

At this point, I have a few decks built out in Master Duel, despite not putting much money at all into it. I still have issues with it, but the economy isn’t anywhere near as bad as it could be, and it’s reasonable for a free player to build out a strong collection by playing regularly.

It’s still Yu-Gi-Oh, and the best of one format needs work, but as a Magic: Arena refugee I’m more than happy.

The Protopet has been unleashed upon the Bogon Galaxy’s unsuspecting population and untold devastation with it. Fortunately, our new ally has precisely what we need to stop the menace before it gets out of hand…

…as soon as she stops tripping all over herself.

It is difficult to overestimate the impact Going Commando has continued to have on the series going forward. So much of what makes the Ratchet & Clank formula what it is today can be traced directly back to this game, from the ability to strafe to upgrade health and weaponry. Even aspects like the large open level where players gather roughly 100 of a specific item to trade for quest progression and money can be traced directly back here.

They also do an excellent job of seeding many of the important details leading up to the big final twist well in advance. As a kid, I had no idea that all those “Behind the Hero” shorts were leading up to anything important, let alone foreshadowing who the big villain of the game would turn out to be. Once you hear Fizwidget speak normally, it makes sense why Qwark disguised as him would try to use big words to obfuscate the fact he’s an incompetent, yet opportunistic simpleton. It’s even reasonable to suspect either Angela or Qwark put the batteries in backward with their personalities.

Considering how much crunch we now know the studio went through in order to complete this project, it’s astounding to me that it all came together as well as it did sans a few minor issues. I would go so far as to call it the perfect sequel.

Though we’ve finished the story, tune in next week as we collect the remaining Titanium Bolts, and explore some of the extras that were included both in this game and in the original Ratchet & Clank.

The Path of Champions calls to us once more, as we join forces with another powerful warrior from the lands of Runeterra. This time, the martial arts master Lee Sin will demolish our enemies with the dragon’s fury.

Something I’ve noticed as I progress through Path of Champions is just how crucial the powers and passives are to our builds. Combined with our supporting champion, the powers we choose along the adventure go a long way towards informing what cards and future powers we take for the rest of the run.

The decision to go with Lux, for example, made sense because both her and Lee Sin level up based on the spells we cast, though along slightly different axes. And that decision to bring Lux is partly why I chose to take that Judgement which ultimately sealed the game for us in that final round. The mana reduction brought it to a 6-cost card, which is exactly expensive enough to level up Lux if she’s on the board.

A bad start won’t break the run, but a good one sets us up for success.

Now that our time as a galactic gladiator has come to an end, and the Infiltrator is soundly in our possession, it’s about time we got to the truth of the experiment that we returned to Megacorp.

As I said during the recording, I actually like the fight against the giant robot in Snivelak. I don’t think it’s a bad design, it just takes too long to defeat it. If they increased the damage that the turrets dealt, doubling or even tripling it, then the fight would be much better paced. As it stands, he’s just too much of a bullet sponge.

It leads to players exploring alternative cheese strategies. Players don’t try these because the boss is tough, but rather because he simply takes too long to kill. Admittedly, all of my experimentation ultimately took more time than just killing the boss “normally”, but I still stand behind doing that because I had more fun that way, and doing so gave me new strategies I can take with me in future replays.

Next time, we go hot on the trail of the Protopet.

It’s been quite some time since we last set put in the lands of Runeterra, and a new update has once again given us the perfect excuse to return.

This time, the incredibly popular Path of Champions mode has undergone a dramatic overhaul. Let’s dive in to see how much the mode has improved as a result.

While there’s certainly something to be said for developing an overpowered and heavily synergistic deck to demolish the AI, one of the only real issues I could have had with the old Path of Champions mode is that once we had “the build”, there was just no more need to think about our players in the middle of the match. There was no more need for strategy.

These higher difficulty runs solve that problem. As you can see, despite how strong my deck was, I still lost the final round on my first try, and almost lost again on my second try, both due to severe misplays. It’s both a test of our deckbuilding capability and our ability to play.

Additionally, the other cool part is how the mode now has several axes upon which we can develop our characters so that we can improve our chances in future runs. There is both account-wide progress with our Legends level, character-specific experience and relics, and character-specific star shards which can be used to upgrade our characters’ passive powers.

I’ve been having a blast playing this mode when I have a spare moment or two, and the new version is absolutely everything I could have asked for and more.